


Kryptonite

by Icanseenow, Rockybeachgirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), M/M, POV Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Pining Sam Winchester, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:15:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28734807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icanseenow/pseuds/Icanseenow, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rockybeachgirl/pseuds/Rockybeachgirl
Summary: Sam is thirteen and knows he wants what he can’t have: his brother and his independence. Dean knows he can’t give him either. Four seasons in their life.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 14
Kudos: 30





	1. Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Jointly written by Icanseenow & Rockybeachgirl as a snapshot of Sam's & Dean's messed up codependent teenage years. Enjoy!

The sun stands high in the sky as they pass the town sign of Emmet, Idaho. 

The black Chevrolet Impala slows down, leaves its high speed from the long drive on the highway behind and starts sailing at leisurely 30 miles per hour along the road that stretches across the sleepy town. Dean has his forehead pressed against the window and watches the unspectacular facades of houses pass them by. 

A jerkwater town, no different to all the other thousands of its kind he's seen before: filled with wrecked buildings and offering little prospect for a brighter future. Dad is always saying that these kinds of towns are dying out. But for this night and the following nights, the city of Emmet has three new residents. 

"Are we there yet?" Sam gets up from the back seat and rubs over his sleepy face. Dean throws him a look over his shoulder and frowns. 

"Dude, if there is a hairdresser in this town, I'll personally drag you there," he grumbles, ignoring Sam's indignant protest. 

"It's over there." Their father interrupts the beginning of their argument and points his finger through the windshield. An elongated building complex at the end of the street, with a rusty motel sign attached to its dilapidated-looking flat roof. 

"Emmet Inn," Sam reads out loud. His voice sounds anything but enthusiastic. "Looks great." 

"If the accommodation isn't up to your standards, Sam, you can sleep in the car." John Winchester's voice is icy and neither Sam nor Dean dare to reply. The 20 hour car ride has made their limbs heavy and the two boys know what can happen when John Winchester is in this kind of mood. 

Dean only dares to take a deep breath once he pushes the door of the Impala open, steps onto the dusty asphalt of the motel parking lot and pushes the vertebrae of his spine back into place.

* * *

The smell of canned noodles still hangs in the air when John Winchester rises from the rickety chair and reaches for his leather jacket.

"I'm going out. Don't wait up for me and lock the door." John stares at Dean. "No excursions, understood?" 

"Yes, sir." Dean nods and feels his throat tighten at the piercing look his father throws him. 

"Alright." John turns to Sam, who is sitting on the couch reading a tattered book. "Make sure your brother doesn't get any stupid ideas either."

Dean nods again and presses his lips into a thin line. 

Then he watches as his father puts on his heavy leather jacket, even though it's much too warm outside despite the late hour; it's a hot spring evening. John shoves his gun into his waistband. 

Dean watches him for a while and only closes the door to the cheap motel room once the Impala growls away from the parking lot and disappears around the next corner. The door lock clicks into place. Then he turns, walks up to the TV and turns it on.

"Dean?" Sam's voice is low. Cautious. "Is Dad alright?" 

"Yes," Dean says. "Dad just needs a break from us."

"He's off to the nearest bar to get plastered again," Sams says with disapproval in his voice and Dean wants to give in to the impulse to defend his father. But Sam is right. That is exactly what is happening. 

"Come here, Sammy." Dean pats the space next to him on the sagging upholstery of the couch. "This movie is awesome." 

The springs creak when Sam finally sits down next to him and stretches out his long legs. 

"It's a western," he says, not exactly enthusiastic. 

"Yes." Dean nods absentmindedly. "I told you it was awesome." 

They sit next to each other for some time while dirty men fight deadly duels on the screen. 

Dean fights against the heaviness in his eyelids. The long car ride has exhausted him more than he'd thought. And it's surprisingly cozy on this uncomfortable couch. Sam gives off heat like a stove. He's always been this way. 

Over and over, Dean's chin drops down onto his chest. 

"Hey Dean, I'm watching this crap because of you," he hears Sam protesting quietly beside him.

"Sorry, Sammy," he mumbles and tries to focus on the movie. 

* * *

It's warm and soft.

Darkness surrounds him and silence envelops him. 

There's a touch against his cheek. Someone gently stroking over his skin. The image of his mother forms in his sleep-fogged mind. The touch feels good and he stretches his neck towards it. 

A hand runs through his hair. Fingers massage his scalp and he senses deep, calm exhales against his neck. 

Where is he? 

He sits up abruptly and rubs over his tired eyes. 

"Sam?" Dean wipes the last bits of sleep off his face. A dream. It was only a dream. "What is going on? Why is the TV off?" 

"The movie was over." Sam's voice sounds weirdly strangled. "I was just about to wake you." 

"Oh man, did I really fall asleep?" Dean struggles to get up from the sagging cushions and rubs his back with a contorted face. "It's a real classic." 

Sam doesn't say anything. 

"Hey, you okay?" Dean takes a closer look at his younger brother. "You look like you didn't really enjoy the movie." 

"The movie was okay." Sam stands up and stretches his long limbs. "I guess I'm just tired too." 

"Alright. Let's hit the hay then." Dean yawns heartily and kicks the heavy boots off his feet. He notices Sam's gaze as he gets up, goes to his bag at the foot of the narrow bed, and pushes his pants off his hips.

"What's wrong with you, Sammy?" Dean raises his eyebrows and feels how a slight discomfort begins to germinate inside him. "Why are you staring at me like that?" 

Sam blinks and wipes away Dean's comment with a fleeting wave of the hand. His grin is a little tense. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just beat. And I'm wondering when Dad will be back." 

"You want to know when Dad will be back?" Dean huffs out a laugh while he takes off his shirt. He pushes the feeling that something is wrong far away. He's imagining things. Not enough sleep. "I thought you'd be thrilled if you don't have to deal with him. Come on, stop moping and let's go to bed. It’s late." 

"Yeah, you're right." Sam walks over to get a pair of shorts and new underwear from his bag. 

A little later they stand in front of the sink, brushing their teeth. 

Their shoulders almost touch as they perform their mechanical movements. 

Dean looks up and glances at his brother's reflection in the mirror. Sam is pale and there are deep circles under his eyes. Long strands of hair fall over his forehead and with a concentrated expression on his face Sam stares at the cracked china of the small sink. 

Dean knows Sam is unhappy. He and John clash at least three times a day. Dean is always standing between the chairs, feeling torn. But at least Sam used to talk to him before. 

Something isn’t right. Dean feels it with every fiber in his body. Sam is keeping secrets. 

Maybe Dean doesn't even want to know. Ignorance can be bliss. So he doesn't ask again. Leaves Sam and what he doesn't want to say in peace. Not that it makes Dean feel any better.

They have been lying side by side in the much too narrow bed for a while. John is still not back. 

Sam's body heat envelops him and Dean tries to shove the blanket off him. 

But he's too tired.

At some point he slips into a dream-like state. Sinks down into the world of the subconscious, until finally he feels the gentle touch on his cheek again.

* * *

Inside the diner the smell of fried bacon hangs in the air.

They get the last table in the back. With toilet door right next to it. 

"Hey, that just means they've got great pancakes," Dean says, rubbing over his stomach. 

"Do you ever think about anything else but food?" Sam holds his head in his hands and yawns. 

"I'm thinking about food when we haven't had any for way too long, yeah. But there's other stuff on my mind. Like hot blondes in short skirts and white aprons." 

Dean straightens his back and stares at the waitress' ass. She is serving food at the next table while Dean ogles her physique. 

Sam doesn't say anything. 

"Hey, did you see that rack on her?" Dean leans over to Sam in a whisper. "Looks almost weight-bearing. Maybe I should offer a helping hand?"

He startles when Sam jumps up from his seat and disappears behind the door to the toilets. 

"What the…?" Dean stares after Sam, shaking his head. But when the waitress turns to him, he decides to forget about him and lets his charm work instead. 

At some point, when he's finished half of his coffee and he's already had one pancake with bacon, Sam returns from the bathroom. 

"You okay?" Dean lifts his head and puts another fully loaded fork into his mouth. "What's up with you? You're all green in the face." 

"Nothing. I'm fine." Sam sits down and tears up the slice of toast on his plate with tight lips. 

Obviously nothing is fine. 

"Is it because of the waitress?" Dean looks expectantly at Sam. "Do you like her or something?" He laughs and leans back into the crumpling vinyl. "Isn't she a little too old for you, Casanova?" 

"Oh, shut up, Dean." Sam pushes the plate away in anger and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm not like you, alright? I don't have to objectify every woman I see. And she's not my type anyway." 

"Sure." Dean grins and leans forward while taking a sip of his coffee. "What's your type then?" 

His grin widens when a slight blush graces Sam's cheeks. 

"Oh come on, tell me. You're more into brunettes, right?"

"Stop it." Sam suddenly sounds desperate. "I'm really not in the mood for you to analyze me, Dean." 

With these words he stands up. 

"I think I'll head back to the motel. Maybe Dad is back already." 

Dean doesn't even get around to express his surprise. All he can do is watch Sam push his way out between the bench and the table and leave the diner without looking back. The bell above the door rings and Dean is alone. 

He sits there confused for a moment and once more this strange feeling crawls up his back. It wraps itself around his shoulders like a cold cloak.

"Hey honey, where is your little friend off to?" The hot waitress – Tracy, her name tag reads - stops next to his table and considers him with a smile. 

"Oh, that's just my brother." Dean makes a dismissive gesture, even though something inside of him wants to run after Sam. "He just needs to cool off a little. He gets like that sometimes." 

"Oh, does he?" Tracy tilts her head and reveals two rows of perfect white teeth. "You ever get any time off from babysitting?" She pushes a folded piece of paper across the table towards him. "You could call me if you want." 

She winks and then leaves to take the order at the next table. 

* * *

When Dean enters the motel room, Sam sits on the bed reading his ratty novel again. 

Dad isn't back. Dean tries not to worry. John Winchester can take care of himself. He'll show up soon. Hungover, yeah, obviously. But apart from that he's going to be just fine. 

Without saying a word to Sam, Dean closes the door and pulls his boots off his feet. Then he goes to his duffel bag, picks out a set of fresh clothes and heads towards the bathroom. He hasn't showered in days. It's a wonder that Tracy hit on him anyway. 

He'll never call her. They're never in one place for long enough for it to be worth the effort. But it's a nice ego boost. 

Dean slams the bathroom door harder than necessary. He wants to grab Sam and ask him what the hell is going on with him lately. What the hell is wrong between the two of them. But it's always easier to keep silent about issues than to discuss them. So he won't say a thing. 

In the shower he feels part of the load fall off him. The water rushing out of the rusty shower head almost hurts, the pressure unusually strong for a motel bathroom. Dean stretches his face towards the hard contact. 

If only the water could wash away strange thoughts too. If it could flood his head and wash out everything that should not be there. 

What the hell is _wrong_ with Sammy? 

He doesn't get an answer. 

Later when he comes back into the room with just a towel around his waist, he still won't say anything and Sam won't even raise his head. 

Dean watches his brother dig his cramped fingers into the pages of the book. 

He has no idea what to say to him. All possible topics of conversation seem to have run out. Everything he can think of would lead to an argument.

Dean is almost happy when, after what felt like an eternity filled only by tense silence, the door is pushed open.

Dad is back. 


	2. Summer

Sam is sitting on the couch in the corner of the living room near the door and is silent. He does not move; he feels as if he is merging with the furniture. The dusty woolen blanket that he's draped over his knees does little to warm him. It's almost summer, but it's freezing in Sioux Falls, and Bobby's old wooden house is no match for the low temperatures. You can feel the draft in every corner, and any gust of wind, no matter how mild, blows through the cracks of the whole building. When Sam dares to pull his arms out from under the covers at night, he wakes up with ice-cold hands. He pushes them under his T-shirt in the morning to thaw them with his own body heat before he rolls out of bed. At Bobby's, he and Dean share a room but they have separate beds. Sam doesn't know if it's a blessing or a curse. He misses waking up pressed against his brother. He would much rather warm his cold fingers on him than do it himself. He would put his hands on his lower back and Dean would curse, but - if Sam was lucky – he would let him. 

He misses Dean's body heat, but at the same time just waking up next to him in the same room freaks him out at times. He can't remember exactly when that had started. It had just appeared one morning, the shame. The feeling that something was wrong with him. 

Sam is sitting on the couch and pulls the covers tighter around his knees. He rubs his heels together. The socks have holes in them, near the toes, the skin is particularly cold here. All the pairs of socks that he currently owns are full of holes. Maybe he could borrow some from Bobby, but it feels like an odd request. He lets the words roll over his tongue tentatively. Just like the question whether they can turn on the heating. It is the last day of April and nobody but him seems to mind the cold. He looks up and gazes over at Bobby and Dean, who are sitting at Bobby's cramped desk, absorbed in thick books. Doing Dad's dirty work. Dad, who hasn't called in two weeks. But if he wants his intel, he'll have to get back to them eventually. If he's not dead. 

Without looking up from his book, Bobby reaches for his glass and only realizes it's empty once he's raised it to his mouth. He looks up, but the bottle is empty too. The chair groans as he pushes it away from the desk. Then his gaze falls on Sam. "What time is it?" he asks Dean. 

Dean rubs over his eyes. "No idea." Then he too looks up and follows Bobby's eyes. He stands up. "It's time to go to bed," he says. 

"I'll just finish up here," says Bobby, and Sam knows chances are good that he will spend the night here, that he will fall asleep with his head on the tabletop. Or maybe he'll actually crawl into his old marriage bed for once. Bobby drinks a lot but he doesn't become like John when he's drunk. He tends to get tired and sluggish. He gets sentimental. 

Dean stands in front of Sam and pats his blanket-covered knee. "Come on."

"I'm not tired." 

Sam is tired. He just hates being treated like a child. Whining only makes him sound more childish, but he doesn't know how to make it clear to Dean that he's his equal. Dean ruffles his hair; Sam ducks out from under the touch, but Dean just grabs him. Grabs him by the side of the neck. "Cut it out," Dean says. He's a little annoyed now, and his voice has taken on a darker tone. The firm warm hand on Sam's neck and the slight aggression makes his heart beat faster. "You're freezing cold, man." Dean lets go of him. Bobby hums a good night from his desk. 

Sam creeps up the stairs behind Dean. 

"He still hasn't called," Sam says. It is not a question. 

"He's gonna. You’ll see. He'll call tomorrow. And the day after he'll be back for sure. He didn't forget."

As a child he used to always believe Dean when he talked about their father this way. But now he sees behind the defense facade. He sees the explanations spin around in circles, so Dad can never be blamed for anything. Dad hasn't forgotten you, but if he forgot about you, then he probably had a good reason. Dad won't hit you, but if he hits you, you must have done something wrong. Dad would never put us in danger, but if he did, then it was unavoidable. Sam hates Dean's Dad Über Alles rhetoric. But he doesn't want to argue anymore. 

Sam wants Dad to call, but he doesn't want him to. He wants Dad to be with them, but he doesn't want him here at all. 

Sam is sitting on his bed in his pajamas and watches Dean pull his T-shirt over his head and drop it on the blanket. He takes ages getting a new shirt out of his duffel bag. The small side lamp standing between their beds makes the skin on Dean's back appear almost milky blue. It is flawless except for a few bruises and scars. Sam knows the origin of most of them; he asks every time. There, directly above Dean's right hip, he fell into the edge of the table when a ghost threw him across the room. Ironically, the moon-shaped scar above his kidney came from a werewolf. There are some bruises that puzzle him. Dean always answers him, but not always in a friendly way and even less often honestly. 

Dean turns to him and raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You are such a weirdo sometimes," says Dean and shakes his head. 

Sam falls back onto the bed, pulls the covers up to his nose. He thinks he's weirdo too. He feels aloof. Not only here, in Bobby's house, but wherever they go and land, he feels like a stranger. At least he has childhood memories of this place. But it doesn't feel like home. Nothing feels like home except for Dean. 

Their father does call the next evening. He talks to Bobby for a while and then asks to speak to Dean. Sam watches the muscles in Dean's cheek twitch while he nods with a stoic expression.  
  
"I'm sorry, son," Bobby says with compassion, but he doesn't look him in the eye as he pats Sam's shoulder. Sam doesn't hold it against him. He knows that Bobby's relationship with John isn't always easy either, and he doesn't like to stand between him and his sons. Sam is not mad at Bobby. He's not even really mad at John, which surprises him a little. He just didn't really expect anything else from his father. 

Dean looks embarrassed. He's struggling with himself. After a moment, he says the exact words Sam's expected him to say: Dad really wanted to be there for his birthday, but the hunt just wouldn't allow it. And after all, Sam wouldn't want some loony monster to cut people's throats and eat their hearts and get away with it just so they could all celebrate Sam's birthday, would he? No, of course not. 

Sam listens to all of this without a word. At some point Dean no longer knows what to say in defense of his father, and anger covers his face. A furrow on his otherwise smooth forehead and a twitch in his cheek. This is what he looks like before he strikes or shoots. 

"He didn't even want to talk to me on the phone," says Sam. He says it monotonously and doesn't care how it comes across. "It's fine. I don't care, Dean, really. " 

Dean raises an eyebrow. If there's anything he can understand less than resistance against Dad, it is indifference to him. Dean aligns his whole life along the parameters their father sets, how can Sam just not care about his absence? The confusion is written all over Dean's face. 

Sam turns around. He wants to go to bed and pull the covers over his head. And when he wakes up tomorrow he'll be 14. And nothing will have changed except that he'll be a little closer to his goal of breaking out of here. He will only have to last another four years before he's no longer stuck in this hell, where no one in his family wants the same from him as he needs from them. John can't be his father, just a commander barking his orders from far away. And Dean can only be his brother and not his, his, his – whatever it is that Sam wants from him. He doesn't think about Dean in these kinds of terms and definitions. He only knows: he wants to merge with him and is repelled by this thought all at once. He wants to be normal, but he can't be normal while he's here. As long as they hunt monsters and he's around Dean. Sometimes he wants to yell at Dean. Wants to tell him that he has to stop treating him with so much love because he can't take it much longer. He is no longer a child. He is no longer a child and every touch has lost its former lightness, but instead is shaped by heaviness and desire and the feeling of disgust. 

He is about to pull the sweater over his head when Dean steps into the room and tells him to keep it on. Sam lowers his arms and looks up with suspicion. 

"Don't pull that face. Just come with me."

Sam gets up and follows him, and when Dean tells him to grab his jacket and be quiet, he obeys too. Only when they are out of the house and have walked for a while, and the Singer Salvage Yard disappears in the background, Sam asks where they are heading. Dean looks at him like he's an idiot and walks on in silence. Away from the streets, between the trees, it's so gloomy that Dean pulls out a small flashlight. Sam walks close to him so he won't trip. When Dean stops, Sam stumbles anyway as he tries not to walk into his brother. Dean pulls him up by the elbow. The tree lines have thinned, and through the narrow light of the flashlight Sam recognizes trampled grass, chunks of hard earth, small and large stones. 

"Where are we?" 

Dean turns to him so that the light brushes their faces. He has an almost graceful, solemn look. 

"This is where I learned how to shoot." 

"Here?" Sam looks around, which is pointless, because everything outside the narrow light cone is black. He can only guess where the trees are by the rustling of the wind. What Dean says doesn't make sense. Dad taught him how to shoot, and when they're with Bobby, Dad is never here. But Dean doesn't explain. He pulls two things out of the inside pocket of his jacket. A flask and a pistol. 

"Happy Birthday, Sammy. It's a few more minutes, but fuck it. "

The pistol is heavier in his hand than he thought. Two pounds at least. Sam stares at the gun in his hand, then looks up into his brother's eyes. 

"A Beretta 92FS," says Dean, as if that meant something. Sam suddenly feels sluggish and tired. He longs for his bed again. He longs to be far away. Somewhere where his brother doesn't look at him with a big grin on his face and waits for him to be happy. 

"Thanks, Dean." 

Sam understands they're here so he can try out the pistol. In the middle of the night, here, where no one can hear them except for some small forest animals that will run away frightened. He doesn't want to. It is insanity. 

Dean grabs his arm and pulls him with him. To Sam's surprise, he instructs him to sit down on a stump of a tree and does the same. He makes no move to get him to shoot. Sam holds the gun awkwardly in his right hand. He can shoot, of course he can shoot, after all, Dad and Dean have been taking him hunting for over a year now. But Sam is used to other kinds of weapons. Usually he just carries a shotgun loaded with rock salt and a knife. Mostly they take him along on ghost hunts. Dad doesn't trust him with anything more complicated, except when it comes to the research. Sam has mixed feelings about this. He prefers research and doesn't feel much of a killer instinct, but he hates not being taken seriously. Hates it even more when Dad takes Dean with him and he's left alone. 

Dean opens the flask and takes a sip before holding it out to Sam. "Don't worry. Dad would have come if you could have."

"I'm not worried. I don't care." Sam drinks even though he doesn't like the taste, but he recognizes the act of bonding. He imagines he can taste his brother's saliva under the alcohol. 

"Don't say shit like that." Dean sounds like he's afraid Dad is around the corner listening. 

"It’s the truth." He takes another sip before returning the flask. "Without you I would have left ages ago." 

Dean fiddles with the flashlight, puts it against his knee. 

"Dad is doing his best. You know what he's given up for us." 

Sam doesn't want to talk about their father. He weighs the pistol in his hand and wonders where it's from. He's never seen it on Dean before. Is it stolen or did Dean find it on a hunt somewhere? He wouldn't have bought it. 

They sit for a while and drink. Dean says some platitudes about Sam being a real man now. Things you only say to children. Nobody has to tell men that they are men. Even though Sam is melancholic and freezing, he doesn't want to get up. At least here there's only Dean and him. And if Dean doesn't talk about their father, he doesn't exist either, and then it doesn't matter that he doesn't care about Sam at all. 

Sam is dizzy when they get up. After a few yards, the flashlight flickers and goes out. Sam orientates himself in the blackness by Dean's cursing and takes a few steps into the nothingness until he feels his brother next to him. He hears how he takes out the batteries and then lets the lamp ring against the palm of his hand. Then he announces that they will find their way back that way. He gropes for Sam, finds his arm immediately, and then his fingers curl tightly around Sam's left hand, the hand that is not carrying a weapon. "Are you okay, Sammy?" 

Sam nods, and when he realizes that Dean can't see him, he says, his voice all scratchy: "Everything is fine." 

Sam thinks - while he blindly follows his brother through the forest until he leads him safely to the road - that he could live like this. Just the two of them and the darkness. The thought embarrasses him as soon as Dean lets go of his hand. As if Dean had no other ambitions in life. As if he had chosen to always have to take care of his little brother. 

When they stand in front of the house, Sam thanks him. 

He doesn't want to go back into the house yet. Although the light from inside shines only weakly, Dean's face looks brightly lit. Sam's eyes have gotten used to the dark.

Dean frowns as if he doesn't know what Sam is thanking for. 

Sam's cheeks are hot and red. He falls around Dean's neck. They are almost the same size, and when Sam presses his chin against Dean's shoulder, he looks at the gun in his own hand resting on Dean's back. If Dean thinks anything of the hug, he doesn't say so. He's holding Sam tightly. Sam feels his warmth and closeness, and he breathes it all in. When he exhales, he sighs. 

Dean finally breaks away from him and considers him with a strange look in his eyes. It's only there for a second, but it's so clear that the thought flashes through Sam like lightning: Dean knows. Dean knows what's wrong with him. 

Sam takes a step back, looks away. And Dean pretends everything is fine. And Sam does too. But he can no longer look his brother in the eye. 

He waits two days before he starts packing his backpack. He asks Bobby to drive him to the library as an excuse. From there he takes the bus. 


	3. Fall

Rain patters against the windows and the roof of the Impala. The hard relentless drops hit the black paint of the car like gunfire. An attack of nature. Wet leaves stick to the windshield.

Dean rubs over his eyes. His watch tells him it’s barely four thirty and it will be a while until the sun rises. If it will show at all. The days have been getting shorter and somehow this season seems even darker than usual. He throws a quick look over his shoulder and catches a glimpse of Sam, who has his forehead pressed against the window and his eyes closed. Dean can’t tell if he is asleep and he won’t ask either. He's too tired to talk to Sammy. It wouldn't get them anywhere anyway. 

Dean's throat tightens at the realization. The last few weeks have been shit and everything he’d say to Sam now would be in part accusation. So they don't talk about it.

Sam is back - that's the only thing that matters. If he keeps telling himself this, eventually he will believe it too. It has to be true. 

The driver's door opens and their father drops down into the seat. Rain-soaked air fills the Impala and makes Dean shiver.

"We can go." John Winchester's voice is tense. "Mr. Cooper was a much more useful witness than that old lady earlier."

"You know where we’re supposed to go now?" Dean sits up and decides to wipe both the tiredness from his eyes and the depressing thoughts from his head.

"Yes." John nods and starts the engine with a determined face. It comes to life, bubbling and humming. "Get ready, boys. We’re putting an end to this demon." 

* * *

Every bone in his body hurts when he closes the cabin door to lock out the wet and cold darkness. A single light bulb flares up briefly before it fills the barren room with its dim light. 

"Dean, is everything okay?" Sam throws him a worried look. The eyes too big in his pale face.

John’s voice is stern: "Come on, boys!" 

Dean is happy he doesn’t get to answer. He still doesn't know what to tell Sam. The past months have robbed them of their natural ease around each other. And then there are the other thoughts and feelings. But he doesn't dare to think about them for more than a second.

"Don't just stand around. This place won’t heat itself." Dad throws their bags onto a shabby-looking couch and places the brown paper bags on the worn wooden table in front of it. "The firewood is outside, in front of the shed. Come on, Sam, get moving. And Dean,” John stares at him with an indefinable expression on his face, "go to the bathroom and wash out the wound on your arm so we can disinfect it."

They obey without objection.

The bathroom is tiny. Dean pulls the door into the lock, pushes the rusty bolt in front of it and leans against the rotten wood. When he closes his eyes he doesn’t replay the fight with the demon back at the warehouse. He doesn't feel the pain in his arm from the jagged dagger leaving a deep cut in his upper arm.

All that Dean sees are moments from when the trees in front of the windows were still in bloom. When Sam's big eyes looked at him with a strange intensity and his shaggy brown hair fell over his forehead. What Dean feels is a past embrace and Sam's hands pressed against his back. The warmth, the familiarity and this feeling of infinity. The next morning Sam had left. And Dean had never felt more abandoned.

Dean had almost lost hope that Sam would return. He was gone for a long time. More than two months. Two months in which Dean hasn't heard from him. He still doesn't know much about what had happened to Sam. He was here and then he wasn’t. Left Dean without a word. 

Even now that he's back, nothing is as it should be. You can't change the past. Just yourself. And Dean tries just that. He tries to be strong. Shutting down your emotions and focusing on things that need to be done. Something like a successful hunt. But what used to lead to a buzzing high does nothing for him now.

He tries to focus on the order his father gave him. The wound needs to be cleaned. Dean takes off his flannel and clenches his teeth before pulling the shirt over his head. The pain rolls in hot waves up his arm, shoots up his neck and explodes inside his head.

He groans and holds onto the edge of the sink and closes his eyes. The pain slowly subsides and all that remains is a persistent dull throb. It’s the kind of pain Dean can deal with. It’s better than what he feels when he thinks of Sam. He doesn't hesitate cleaning the gaping wound. The pain is clear and sharp. Distracting. 

Later, John takes a look at the wound.

"You need stitches." There is no comfort in his voice. Dean didn't expect there to be. ”You shouldn't have thrown yourself at him like that. You should have shown some restraint. Next time they might kill you."

Dean endures the rebuke in silence and presses his lips together as his father pushes the needle in. Sam is sitting on the bed, pale-faced, staring over at them. Maybe that's why Dean forces himself to look the other way. Maybe he can't stand Sam seeing the pain that is holding him tight. He doesn't want to be weak. Not because of a wound, and certainly not because of his little brother. He is not weak.

Sweat runs down his temples and the nausea overwhelms him when John finally stands up and arches his back. "That’s gonna leave a scar," he says, putting the sewing kit away. "Maybe it will remind you of how to act in combat."

He gets up, goes to the small kitchen unit, and washes his hands. Then he takes a bottle of whiskey from the brown paper bag.

"It was a tough day." He takes three glasses from the cupboard over the sink and puts them on the table in front of the fireplace where the fire is busy eating up the logs. "Come here."

They sit next to each other in silence while their dad pours. For Sam it's only a fingerbreadth. 

The air in the hut is getting warm.

* * *

Dean doesn't know how much he’s had. His head feels pleasantly padded and the pain in his arm is just a dull throb.

Sam climbed into his narrow bunk half an hour ago and Dad's chin sagged onto his chest ten minutes ago. Dean can hear his deep breaths. He gets up carefully. He sways back and forth for a moment, then he regains his sense of balance, goes over to his father and takes the empty glass out of his hand. 

The fire is only glowing weakly and the cold is already creeping up again and conquering back what the warmth of the flames had driven away. Dean spreads a thin blanket over his sleeping father. A shiver runs down his spine. Then he goes to the bed in the corner where Sam's body can be seen under the covers. He has turned his face to the wall; Dean suspects that he’s asleep. 

He struggles to pull his shoes off his feet and unbutton his jeans. He leaves it everything along with his socks in a messy pile in front of the bed. He pushes himself next to Sam onto the narrow mattress and grits his teeth when a spring presses into his injured arm.

When the pain has ebbed away, he lies there quietly. Only the faint crackling of the smoldering logs and the snoring of Dad underline the silence. He rubs his face and closes his eyes. Just then Sam stirs next to him.

"Dean?" Sam whispers his name against the wall and Dean's eyes fly open. It takes a moment for him to answer and even then his voice sounds uncertain. "I thought you went to sleep ages ago."

"I tried to." Sam sounds lost. "But it’s not working."

"Try again." Everything inside Dean cramps up. He has no strength for a complicated conversation with Sam. "Dad won't let us sleep in."

"I know." Dean feels Sam nod, then he turns onto his back and finally he faces Dean. Sam's warm breath brushes his ear and his cheek and covers him in chills. "Dean... I'm sorry..."

A faint, lifeless laugh leaves Dean's lips and to his horror he realizes that his eyes are wet. He swallows. He fights until he has himself under control again.

"Cut it out, Sam. You should get some sleep.” He tries to speak with a firm voice, but it refuses to be controlled. It just sounds drained and broken. He's afraid of the words Sam is trying to share with him. Everything should be normal between them. But that time when they were just Dean and Sam, brothers, has been over for far too long.

Dean has no idea when it happened. Maybe there isn't a specific point in time. Maybe it just happened and went as unnoticed as catching a virus. He just knows that everything is different now. The worst is the fear that Sam might leave again. 

* * *

  
_The sun shines through the tattered, drawn curtains. Dean opens his eyes, blinks and puts a hand over his face. When his eyes have gotten used to the brightness, he tilts his head and looks at the alarm clock next to his bed. Eleven o'clock. With a jerk he stands up and stares at the empty bed on the other side of the room._

_Dean doesn't know where the feeling of danger comes from, but he feels it all over and hurries to pull on his jeans, which are lying on the floor inside out._

_Bobby is sitting at his desk, a cup of coffee in front of him, an unopened bottle of whiskey next to it, when Dean enters the study five minutes later._

_He lifts his head and a short smile glides over his bearded face. „Figured I’d eventually have to drag you out of that bed." Bobby laughs. Dean looks around, searching._

_"Where's Sam?"_

_"I drove him to the library this morning. That boy is only happy when he gets to stick his nose into some books."_

_"Did he say when he’d be back?" Dean shifts from one leg to the other. He can’t tell where this nervousness comes from._

_"No." Bobby frowns at him. "Do I look like his nanny to you? He'll be back when he's done."_

_Dean nods and feels stupid. Sam is only at the library. Everything is okay. Slowly he relaxes and feels his hungry stomach growl._

_"I'll make myself some scrambled eggs, do you want some?" he asks Bobby, who just shakes his head, opens the bottle and pours himself some into the coffee._

_Sam is still not back in the afternoon. Dean helps Bobby take apart the well-preserved sheet metal parts of an old ambulance. At the sight of the skeletal car wreck, the cold creeps up on his neck. Sam should have been back ages ago._

_"Do you mind if I take a car and drive into town?" Dean asks. Bobby looks at him and then at his watch. A shadow crosses his face. Then he nods. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a key and holds it out to Dean._

_"Take the transporter."_

_It doesn't take Dean long into town. He steers Bobby's car through the streets and finally parks it in front of the Sioux Falls City Library across the street._   
_After getting out of the car, he hugs his shoulders as a cold wind blows around his shoulders. Something is wrong. He can feel it._

_He shakes his head, tries to suppress these thoughts and storms towards the entrance to the library with hunched shoulders._

_Inside, he is greeted by subdued light and the smell of old paper. It’s not a place he would voluntarily spend the whole day if he wasn't forced to. Unlike Sammy._

_Dean looks around and walks along the shelves crammed with books._

_He’s searching for an hour. In the end there’s no corner he hasn’t looked into. He asks for Sam at the information desk._

_A librarian thinks he remembers something._

_"Yes, that boy was definitely here, but can’t keep track of everyone who comes in here. I don’t know when he left."_

_When Dean wants to turn away in frustration, an old woman steps out of a door with the word "Storage" on it and comes to stand next to the man with a stack of books in her hands. The little gray curls are tightly twisted and her glasses dangle from a twisted cord around her neck. With narrowed eyes she steps closer, sets the books on the wooden counter and then pushes the glasses onto the bridge of her nose. Her eyes suddenly look enormous._

_"Are you looking for someone?" Her voice sounds friendly._

_"Yes." Dean draws new hope. "A boy about this size." He gestures with his hand._

_The woman nods. "Does he have long brown hair?"_

_Dean's heart leaps and then beats uncontrollably. Too fast too hectic._

_"Did you see him? Was he here? Did he say something to you?"_

_"He was a polite young man." The woman smiles at the memory. "Stayed here for about an hour, picked up various books. But he didn’t check out anything. He greeted me when I left." She nods and seems to want to remember more details. "I saw him through that window." She points to the dusty pane of glass behind which the main street lies. "He might have taken the bus. But I’m not sure." She shakes her head and smiles again. "Does this help you in any way?“_

_Dean stares at her for a moment in silence. Then he turns on his heel and leaves the library.He tries two weeks to find out what happened to Sam and almost loses his mind in the process._

_Bobby can't help him and Dad can't be reached by phone._

_At some point there is a letter in Bobby's mailbox. A message from Sam telling them not to worry about him._

_He won’t return for another 2 months. Nothing is as it used to be._

* * *

Dean has no idea how long he slept. It's dark in the room. And cold. The fire has given way to the cold. He hears deep breathing coming from the direction of the sofa. Dad is sleeping off his intoxication. When Dean turns his gaze to the side, he startles. Sam is looking at him.

"Did you have a nightmare?" His brother's voice is just a whisper. It sounds alien. As if someone was lying next to Dean he doesn't know anymore. 

"No, it's fine." He rubs over his face. "Let's just go back to sleep."

Suddenly there is something on his arm. Fingers close around his wrist and squeeze. Dean lies there frozen on the narrow mattress and feels the touch. Feels his brother. So close. So close.

It hurts, he notes with a strangely abstract clarity. A pain that sits in the deepest depths, rekindled by this unexpected contact. With a jerk Dean tears his arm out of Sam's grip and inches away from him. He can’t suppress the tremors that wave through his body.

Hectic breath fills the air. They stare at each other. Dean tries several times to turn away but he’s glued to Sam's eyes. They reflect the pain that Dean feels and in an absurd way it’s soothing to know they’re in this together. But the moment passes. Dean bows his head.

"I never meant to hurt you," Sam whispers and Dean hears that he is fighting against tears.

Maybe that's why he doesn't get up to put space between them even though everything in him screams for it. Anger and sadness fight each other but Dean stays where he is. He waits to see if his brother will continue to speak. After a moment's hesitation, he does.

"I’d understand if you hate me for what I did." A few tears roll down Sam's cheek, drip onto the back of his hand and run onto the sheet.  
Dean knows that Sam is not just talking about running away. He remembers the touches and the looks. He remembers Sam's cool hands under his T-shirt and the warm blanket over them keeping out the rest of the world. 

"I don't hate you,” he says in a rough voice into the darkness. "I couldn’t hate you.“

And that's the truth. He feels anger, sadness and loss, but maybe it's okay to have these feelings. It’s easier to live with them than a life without Sam. 

Dean's neck contracts when he extends his hand and carefully places it on Sam's arm.

Confusion and gratitude battle in Sam's wet eyes as he lifts his head.

It might never be the same as it used to be, but life has always held many changes in store for them.

Sam's cool hands on Dean's skin. Warm breath on his neck.

Life without Sam is impossible; life without Sam is painful.

But so is a life with him in it. Maybe even more so. 

Sam pulls him down into an abyss where things are waiting for him that he may not be ready for.

But if Sam was gone, there’d be nothing but darkness waiting for him. 

Sam is his weak point. Sam is his Achilles heel. Sam is his kryptonite.

They are irrevocably linked.

Dean suffers because of Sam. Suffers without him.

But he will always choose Sam. Even in the darkest hour.

The kiss is hard and filled with despair. Dean pulls Sam close and holds him in his arms. Protectively and at the same time reaching for help. Salt runs into their mouths, giving the kiss a sad taste. But Dean doesn't want Sam to leave again. He loves him too much.

And later when Sam breathes a deep and calm breaths, one of his hands on Dean's chest, Dean knows that he did the right thing. He did it for Sam. The most important person in his life. Something that won’t ever change.


	4. Winter

The pile of snow in front of the cabin grows with every minute. Sam pushes the faded curtain aside and thinks of his father. He left yesterday, saying he would be back by the weekend, but Sam doubts the Impala will make it through half of Vermont if it keeps on snowing like this. Dad didn't say why he wasn't taking them. He didn't even tell them what exactly it was he was hunting. He’d gotten that determined expression around his lips when Sam asked, and he’d laid into Dean when he had dared to object. Dean and John had stood together in the kitchen arguing. Sam could hear their muffled voices through the door, catching only bits and pieces but enough to get a good picture. "But Dad — Sir —," Dean had said, and he’d sounded so different to his usual self. Childlike, meek, and begging - at the mercy of his opponent. Dad had made it clear to him that he was not to question him. It was the blank spaces that Sam found the most threatening. The pauses of silence. 

When John drove off the snow cover was still thin, little more than a dusting of white on the uneven road. Sam imagines his father stuck somewhere. It’s absurd to opt for a classic car when you’re doing so much cross-country travelling as a hunter. It would make much more sense to buy a decent modern car. Something sturdy you could rely on. But Dad would never swap the Impala for a more sensible option. He’s far too emotionally attached to let go. Sometimes Sam hates how much he can be like his father. 

Dean has been sulking nonstop since John has left. Not that there’s anyone but Sam to notice. 

Sam is also angry with their father, more than usual. But it’s not because he didn’t take them on the hunt. On the contrary: A week ago they left Bennington. From one day to the next, John had ordered them to pack their things. Sam had liked Bennington High. In the short two months he’d spent at the school, he had made a few friends and learned to appreciate the routine. Most of all he misses the classes and most of the teachers. 

He wonders what it says about him that he prefers the presence of teachers over his father’s. Sam has no problem with authority or rigor. He can be disciplined, he can obey orders. He’s fine with authority figures if he can trust them. If they’re experts in their field. If they do as they say. A man who sleeps with a gun under his pillow but can't keep his hands off the bottle — how is Sam supposed to believe in his infallibility? 

He has never had a problem showing respect to his teachers, in fact he's always a little shy around them. He soaks up their knowledge and the praise they throw at him. The belief in him. The day before his involuntary last day of school, his history teacher had asked him to join the history club. It’d look good on his application forms later. It had never even occurred to her that he might not be going to college at all. With a tingling sensation in his stomach, he had thanked her and said he would think about it.

He thinks of his former soccer team, the mathletes and the drama club. He’s always had to fight to participate in things other parents would have been proud of. Dad had begrudgingly allowed him to play soccer because it was good for his stamina. He had made fun of the mathlete thing but let it slide. The drama club had always been a sore subject, and the fights had only stopped once they'd moved on and the next school didn’t offer anything in the same vicinity. 

Not that he would dare to ask Dad for anything right about now. It hasn’t exactly been easy since Sam’s returned. Sam walks on eggshells around his father, but things between him and Dean aren’t much better. That one night a few months ago doesn’t feel like a real memory. Sometimes he's not sure if he just dreamed it up. He can hardly ask Dean. 

"Have you really been sitting here for the last half an hour, just staring at the snow outside? Jesus, Sammy. " 

Dean sits down on the arm rest of the couch and opens a bottle of beer with his teeth. He catches Sam looking and shrugs. "It's not like Dad will miss it." Dean takes a gulp. 

Sam turns back to the window.

Dean acts like everything is normal between them, and so does Sam - but they both know it's not true. Not since Dad found him and dragged him back home. Sam isn't sure why he did it. If it’s a question of protecting Sam from the world, he’s not sure he’s safer with them than on his own. And if it’s about protecting the world from Sam, Dad shouldn't have brought him back to Dean. 

He would have come back at some point anyway. Probably. Every morning he’d woken up in his stolen sleeping bag, his first thought had been about Dean. In some weird way Sam had been waiting for them to find him and bring him back. And yet he had been surprised when they’d really turned up. Sam would never forget the look in their eyes. The relief that was written not only all over Dean’s but Dad's face too - it had surprised Sam. Then it had turned into anger and disbelief. 

Dean is getting restless behind him. Sam can feel it without Dean making any noise. 

"I wish we were still in Bennington," Sam says. Just to say something. 

"Bennington was as much of a dump as this place. Same snow too."

Sam turns to him and frowns. "Are you being serious?" 

Dean shrugs and takes a sip from his bottle. 

"We could at least have waited until the end of the school year. Now we're just sitting around while Dad is God knows where. We might as well have stayed until he's done. " 

"You have no idea what you’re talking about." 

Dean drinks and looks outside. 

"Oh, but you do?" 

"You should be grateful Dad didn't take you with him." 

Dean's voice is serious. His gaze fixed on the white outside. 

Sam looks at his brother for a long time until he asks: "What is that supposed to mean?" 

"You know exactly what it means." 

"You think I don’t know he only lets me stay here because he’s too busy to keep tabs on me on a hunt and knows you won't let me out of your sight?" He doesn't want to sound so harsh, but he can’t help it. He shakes his head. "This is so dumb."

Dean turns around so fast that Sam flinches. 

"What's dumb about it?" 

"Why should I run away? I just told you I wanted to stay in Bennington."

"Yeah, exactly." 

Dean lifts the beer bottle, notices that it is empty and gets up. Sam follows him into the kitchen. He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, bracing himself for a fight. Dean takes two bottles out of the refrigerator. He holds one out to Sam and misunderstands his hesitation. "I already told you: Dad won’t care."

Sam takes the bottle. It's freezing. 

The cabin consists of little more than a main room, a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom. The bed and the couch take up most of the room alongside a small television set and a buzzing electric heater. Dean bends down next to the heater. He hits its side with the flat of his hand - the buzzing gets louder momentarily before it subsides. 

Dean sits down on the couch and stares ahead. He wishes he were with Dad, Sam knows all too well. Sam pushes past him and sits down on the edge of the soft bed.  
  
He has apologized to Dean. He told him he’d never meant to hurt him. It’s all true. But the longer Sam is back, the more unsure he becomes of what that means for him. He's making Dean unhappy. That is a fact. 

Nothing has changed since he's come back. Nothing except that Dean is more withdrawn while hovering over him, following every step he takes with eagle eyes. Sam isn’t planning to run away again. He doesn't want to hide in an abandoned trailer for weeks on end and fear every day that someone will find him. He hadn’t really thought about his long-term plans all that much when he’d ran. He wanted a normal life, and living off-grid and false identities weren’t exactly a part of that. 

He wants a normal life and he wants Dean. Knowing that he wants to stay with Dean so badly makes him even more certain that he has to leave eventually. But this time he'll do it in a normal, less desperate way. He will wait. He will leave when it's normal to do so. And if until then he’ll go a little crazy because of Dean now and then, then that's just the way it is. He'll manage. He won't touch him again. He won't make the same mistakes again. 

Sam puts down the beer, goes to his backpack and takes out his history book. He didn’t have time to hand in anything. All of his school supplies are either here with him or still in his locker miles away. 

He returns to the couch, pulls his feet under him and opens the book. He reads about the War of Independence and the cost of victories and he keeps taking small sips of his beer. It tastes like fermented grain, even more than usual, and he doesn't know exactly why he's drinking it at all. People can get used to anything. 

Dean turns on the television. On a talk show three people are shouting at each other, so loud that they can’t understand themselves. Sam throws Dean an angry look, which Dean ignores with ease. 

Sam pulls his backpack up onto the couch and digs out his Walkman. His small black fluffy headphones are the absolute opposite of soundproof. Even when he turns the music up, he can hear the TV in the background. Dean has started zapping through the channels at full speed. Every second it changes from advertising to a nature documentary to a soap. 

Sam presses his lips together, tries to concentrate on his music and the book. He reads the same sentence for the fourth time. "Can you maybe turn it down a bit?" 

"Why?" Dean asks without looking at him. 

"Because I'm trying to concentrate."

"What for?" 

Sam sighs and shakes his head. He pulls the headphones straight and turns the pages. He reads at a snail's pace. The B-side finishes and he turns the tape to the A-side. 

At some point, Dean leaves to get another beer. When he comes back he stops right in front of Sam, leans down and lifts the right earphone away from Sam and holds his own ear against it. His face twists in disgust. It stings when the headphones snap back. 

"U2? Are you fucking serious? This absolute garbage? I thought I taught you better than that."

Sam closes his book. "It's not garbage."

"Where did you even get this?"

"It was a gift."

The last tones of "If God Will Send His Angels" comes muffled through the headphones. 

Dean gives him a strange look. 

"From a friend. At school."

Dean laughs. He visibly relaxes. "So that's why you're crying about Bennington? Don’t worry. It’ll pass. There are plenty of other beautiful girls out there, even for freaks like you." 

"Cut it out." Sam’s voice comes out loud and hard. "It’s nothing like that. I just found some friends in Bennington, like I always have to find new friends in every shitty place we end up in and who I never get to see again, because we leave from one day to the next just because we have a crazy father who —"

The slap hurts. Sam's cheek is on fire. They stare at each other. 

"Don't call him crazy," Dean says, but the conviction is already fading from his words. 

Sam is still staring at him. 

"I’m sorry, Sammy." Dean looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights. "You know I just can't let you talk about him like that."

He turns away and hurries into the kitchen. 

When Sam jumps up from the sofa, he's not sure what he's feeling. The anger is still there, but it is overshadowed by worry. That strange look in Dean's eyes, far away and desperate. 

Dean stands in the corner of the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest. He looks like someone who has put himself into time-out. He doesn't apologize again. He doesn't say anything. He just looks everywhere except in Sam's direction. 

"Dean." It's the only thing he can think of. His brother’s name. He doesn't understand what just happened. His cheek is still burning hot. 

Dean shakes his head, as if Sam had asked him a question. 

"I have to get out of here," Dean finally says in the direction of his feet. He slips into his shoes and grabs his jacket. He is so quick that Sam has trouble to follow. When he’s finally tied up his Converses and stumbles out of the door, Dean is nowhere to be seen, but the tracks in the deep snow are clear. After just a few steps, Sam's feet are soaked; a few more steps and his toes feel frozen. 

Dean hasn’t gotten far. He stands behind the house on the small ledge where the heathland begins. His shoulders are pulled under his ears, his gaze downcast. It starts snowing, and the small flakes settle like a crown on Dean's head before they melt and darken his hair. 

Sam steps up to him, touches his elbow and waits. 

He is surprised at the anger in Dean’s eyes when he looks up. Sam tries to brace himself, but it’s futile; the words lose none of their force when they hit him. 

"You're a liar," Dean spits. "You’re a fucking liar. I can't believe I fell for your worthless apology." 

"I didn't lie to you." Sam doesn't have to ask what Dean means. 

"You disappeared without one single word! And now you want to do it all over again." 

"I don’t." Sam puts his arms around himself. The wind blows the snow into their faces, cold and hard. Sam's jacket hangs open around his shoulders. 

"Shit, Sammy, do you think I'm blind? All you do is talk about school and how much better everyone else’s life is. Do you have to rub it in like that? I get it! You hate staying with us."

"I don't hate staying with you," Sam says. His quiet words are diffused by the wind, but he knows that Dean has caught them anyway. 

Nobody ever looks at Sam like Dean is looking at him right now. So angry and hurt, so desperate. Like what Sam says or does really means something. Like it makes a difference. 

"Were you really that much happier without me?" Dean asks. "Was it really so much better?"

Sam turns away. There is no way to explain without completely exposing himself. In the distance, on the other side of the white landscape lies an old farmhouse with no windows, just large black holes. 

"I’m not going to run away again. I never meant to… I just didn't know how else to —" 

He breaks off. 

"To what?"

"I can't do this, Dean." He hates how small his voice sounds. "I can't do it. This life. I can't be with you and — "

He doesn't know if Dean understands. Whether he thinks he's talking about hunting or the both of them. And Sam isn’t entirely sure if these things are dividable at all. 

"But I’m not going to run again. I promise." 

Dean shakes his head. The anger wins. 

"You want to go to college." 

Sam frowns. It takes him a second to understand that this isn’t a change of subject. 

"You do want that, don't you? Go off to university?" Dean says it like it’s a threat. Like he’s talking about a sickness that's going to befall them. 

"But that’s still years off." Four years seem like an eternity to him, like another life. Four years ago he was a child, someone who’s now like a stranger to him. "Besides, I doubt any university is going to want me. Not when I won’t finish a single year at any High School." 

Dean looks at him for a long time. His face is a hostile mask that crumbles more and more until only incomprehension and fear remain. 

"Why?” he asks. 

Sam hugs himself. "It’s a normal thing to want. Most people do it." 

"You're not normal."

A sentence like another slap, except it hurts a lot more. 

"You don't really know me at all," Sam says. "If you knew me, you wouldn't want me to stay." 

Dean shakes his head again. "Is it the hunting?" he asks. "Is it Dad? I know that you two got your problems but —"

"No, Dean." 

Dean steps closer. "Is it me?" 

Sam looks away. 

"I just want to be normal," he says. It's not a lie, it’s at the periphery of truth. "I just want to live a normal life." 

Dean's shoes creak through the snow until they touch the white rubber soles of Sam's sneakers. Dean puts his hand on Sam's cheek, the one he reddened earlier, and turns Sam's face towards him. His fingers are ice cold but gentle. 

The snow fall intensifies. The white flakes swirl around them, frame Dean's face. It is the coldness of the air that makes it difficult to breathe, not the proximity of his brother. Not the green eyes that make Sam feel like a fly trapped inside his web. It's a moment of danger. It feels like a deciding moment. The sword of Damocles hovering over them. Everything is in Dean's hands. Sam would follow him. Sam would do anything right now, if Dean only said so. He would go with him. He would cross all boundaries without blinking an eyelid, if Dean only asked him to. Right now, Sam would promise him everything. He would do anything. 

But Dean only says: "If you really want to go to university, that’s your problem. But if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut around Dad." 

Sam shakes him off. Wipes his hand away. The moment is gone. Dean's voice is level and far too normal. "Let’s go inside." He doesn't even wait for Sam to nod, he's already trudging through the snow back to the cabin.

Sam stays. The snow is so thick that he can no longer see the other side of the field. Everything is covered in a white-gray veil. 

Inside, Dean puts the kettle on and tells Sam to take a hot shower. The snow on his jeans melts and drops onto the wooden floor. Sam does as he's told. He finds it difficult to stand on his icy feet. They are more purple than blue by now. It hadn’t seemed like they'd been in the snow that long. The moment, just like that night in the fall, it felt timeless. Like someone had invented it. Like it couldn’t ever have happened in real life. But when Sam presses his thumb into his foot and it leaves a pressure mark that only goes away slowly, he knows it really happened. Everything. 

He takes a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt into the small bathroom. The towel is so clammy that it won’t dry him completely. He pulls the fresh shirt over his red skin anyway. 

Dean pushes a steaming chrome mug into his hand. Sam smells the alcohol in the tea. He takes a sip and burns his tongue the same way he chastised his body in the shower. 

Dean turns the TV back on. They sit on the couch in silence, ignoring the demolition derby on the screen. The mug warms Sam's hands. He drinks in small sips. 

He hates Dean's rigor. Hates the way he’s ignoring him. How quickly he closed up, leaving Sam feeling awkward and exposed, with nowhere to turn to. As if Sam had refused him and not the other way around. Dean is asking something impossible. Dean wants Sam to be someone who doesn't exist. It has always been this way and always would be. 

Dean stands up. The cupboard door in the kitchen rattles. He comes back with a newly filled cup.

"What did you mean earlier?" Dean asks. He stops in the door frame. He acts relaxed, as if they were talking about a movie or what they had for lunch the other day. 

A crash on screen. A cheer goes through the crowd. 

"Huh?" Sam looks up. 

"That if I knew you, I wouldn't want you to stay?"

Sam looks at the TV again. It’s so old that the colors seem painted by a child with a rough pencil. They run into each other. 

"Listen to me," Dean says. His voice is taut as a bowstring. "I know you like no one else. I know you better than I know myself. So what the hell is that supposed to mean. You think I don’t know you? Is that why you ran away? Is that why you want to leave again? Did someone say anything to you?" 

"No one said anything to me." 

Dean stands in front of the couch. He barely fits in the space between Sam's legs and the television. There is still snow on his clothes. Most of it has turned to water staining the fabric black, but there are still flakes on his shoulder and in his hair, behind his ear. 

"You belong here," Dean says. It is clear to Sam that he’s not talking about this place. Not this cabin. Not Vermont. He means both of them. There is a finality to his words. Then his body disappears from Sam's field of vision. He goes to the bathroom. The sputtering sound of the shower seems louder to Sam now that he's not the one under the water. 

He turns off the TV. He drinks the tea; it is the vodka inside that warms him. He goes back to the window. He pictures John inside the wall of white. Sees him get stuck inside the snow. Sees him curse and hit the dashboard with the palm of his hand. 

He saw the relief in John's eyes. When he opened the door of the trailer and found him. Sam wonders how much of the worry was for him. And how much of it was - oh, he does not want to think about it now. He is too sad, too drained.

When Dean comes out of the bathroom, Sam doesn't turn around. In the window pane he sees the outlines of his body. He sees the towel falling and Dean putting on a T-shirt and later a pair of boxer shorts. And there is something about the innocence of the act, his brother dressing himself in front of him, that lets Sam say: "I didn't just leave because of you. But mostly." 

Dean freezes in his movement. Then he lets the jeans he just pulled out of his bag sink back down onto the ground. 

Sam turns to him. He doesn't let him out of your sight. He doesn't know why all of the sudden it seems important to him to tell the truth. Why four more years of one lie seem unbearable to him now. 

"Something is wrong with me, Dean." 

Dean looks at him. Only then does he start moving and step closer. "What do you mean?"

"Something is wrong with me and I feel it the most when you are there." Sam looks at his hands folded in front of his stomach. "Dad knows too. I don't think he understands. But he sees it. " 

"What the hell are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with you." 

"You said it yourself: I'm not normal."

Irritation buzzes over Dean's face. "I meant you’re not normal because our whole family isn’t. We are hunters. We're just not like other people."

"No. I'm not like you and Dad either. " 

"No? What are you like then? "

Everything Sam can think of sounds like self-pity. But that's not what he is feeling. There is something dark in him. He's bad for Dean. It's like poison that will slowly destroy his brother. He can't explain how he knows. He's a burden. And there's something inside Sam that Dean wants to pull down with him. No, not wants to, must. 

"What did I do?" Dean asks. 

"You didn’t do anything." 

Sam moistens his lips with the tip of his tongue. 

"Sam." Dean puts his hand on his neck like a coach with his boxer before the last round. "Sammy," he says. "Tell me what I can do." 

It's such a strange sentence out of Dean's mouth that Sam actually thinks about it before answering. "You can let go of me. You can let me go." 

Dean shakes his head. Then he puts his forehead against Sam’s. "No." 

Sam keeps his eyes open. Even too close and blurry, Dean’s face is beautiful. Almost too beautiful. 

"I can't do that, Sam." He presses their heads together. He whispers. "I can't do this without you." 

A dead end. Dean can't do it without him, and Sam can't do it with him. 

"You can't leave me," says Dean. 

Sam kisses him. It is less desire than a promise, but when Dean reacts, a possibility strikes Sam that seems so alien and absurd: It’s not just him who struggles, who feels that there’s something weighty and dangerous between them - Dean feels it too. Dean already knows. There is nothing that Sam has to confess to him. 

Dean kisses him gently and carefully, as if Sam were something worth protecting. As if he were good. 

Sam's fingers glide over Dean's soft face and run into his hair. He wants to touch everything, he wants to feel everything. 

When he moves his hips and presses his abdomen against Dean’s, his brother jumps. He puts his hands on Sam's shoulder, building a barrier between them. He avoids Sam's gaze. 

"I can't." But what he means is: he doesn't want to. 

The shame that comes over Sam is stronger than the diffuse anger he feels. 

"Sam," Dean says. It sounds apologetic. Conciliatory. It sounds brutal.

In the bathroom, Sam sits down on the hard plastic toilet seat and tries to do the math. 

There is a knock on the door. "Sam? Come on, Sammy, open up." 

Sam lets him knock. 

365 x 4 -1. 1459 days. 35016 hours. That’s how long he’ll have to last. Give or take. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. <3
> 
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